Our support in Moldova continues

The emergency aid project in Moldova, which the Pestalozzi Children’s Village set up in a very short time last year, is entering a new phase. With war still raging in Ukraine, huge numbers of people, mostly women and children, are still fleeing to neighbouring Moldova. For most of them, Moldova is just a transit country on the way to Western Europe. Others stay for longer. They currently number more than 100,000, which is about 4% of the Moldovan population.

We are supporting people across nine districts. After implementing the first phase of the project directly, the Pestalozzi Children’s Village has brought a partner on board for the second phase. Educational Center Pro Didactica (ECPD) is a long-standing local partner organisation with extensive experience in rolling out educational projects in Moldova.

New measures in the field of education

When the first phase of the project finished at the end of 2022, we started planning the second phase, given that the situation in Ukraine was showing no sign of improvement. A requirements analysis demonstrated that refugees still had significant needs, particularly in terms of education. Many parents receive inadequate advice and information about educational institutions and enrolment opportunities. Children who attend school in Moldova rarely get individual support from teachers and struggle to follow the language of the classroom, Romanian, which is foreign to them. Meanwhile, pupils who take part in Ukrainian schooling via distance learning do not have enough space or the equipment they need. Refugee Roma children are often not enrolled in any school at all, be it in Ukraine or in Moldova.

In order to tackle these problems, we are implementing new measures in the second phase of our project, in partnership with the ECPD:

• We are setting up digital learning centres, where children and young people from nine districts can follow Ukrainian online lessons and learn independently.
• We are supplying children and young people with IT and other school equipment.
• We are giving teachers additional training in how they can offer refugee children individual support.
• Once trained, the teachers are organising lessons on cross-cultural education and peaceful coexistence, as well as extracurricular activities.
• We are organising Romanian classes for Ukrainian children in order to support their integration.
• We are building the capacity of local authorities, to support families and children across the board, including in education and school enrolment. In particular, we are helping local authorities to organise meetings with Roma parents and inform them about learning opportunities for their children. We ensure that pupils have the necessary school equipment and offer extra tuition where needed.
• Localisation: We build the capacity of local actors such as schools, teachers and local authorities to take on responsibilities as regards refugee support and protection.

Psychological and other kinds of support

Specialist staff are continuing to provide psychological help. This is giving children and young people access to high-quality support in coping with their traumatic experiences of war and life as a refugee. As meeting basic needs is still a challenge for refugees, the project also provides them with vouchers for food, clothing and shoes, medicine and hygiene items. We supply the reception centres with electrical appliances and household items to cover the basic needs of the families accommodated there.